DS 195 






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\4 

The Blackest Page 

of 

Modern History 

Events in Armenia in 1915 
The Facts and the Responsibilities 



By 

Herbert Adams Gibbons, Ph.D, 

Author of 

"The Foundation of the Ottoman Empire," "The 

New Map of Europe," etc. 



G. P. Putnam's Sons 

New York and London 

Gbe Umicfterbocfter press 

1916 






y<P & 



Copyright, 19 16 

BY 

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 



Ube Iftnicfeerbocfcer press, "fflew l£orfc 

MAR -4 1916 

©CI.A427135 



"And the Lord said unto Cain, Where is 
Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: 
am I my brother's keeper?" 

Genesis iv. f 9. 



The Blackest Page of 
Modern History 



FOREWORD 

rHE war that started on August I, 
1914, has gradually involved na- 
tions, large and small, not origin- 
ally participants. Other nations, large and 
small, while still managing to maintain 
an official neutrality, have found them- 
selves drawn into diplomatic controversies 
with both groups of belligerents. With the 
exception of South America, the continents 
of the world have sent contingents to fight 
in Europe. The destinies of Africa, Asia, 
and Australia are at stake, and the destinies 



6 The Blackest Page 

of the western hemisphere will, long before 
the end is reached, be influenced vitally by 
the tremendous events that are taking place 
in Europe. We can, then, without exag- 
geration, call the war that was provoked by 
the Austro-Hungarian ultimatum to Servia, 
a world war. 

Still in x the midst of war, still prejudiced 
by our sympathies and our interests, neither 
participants nor spectators are in a position 
to form a definitive judgment upon the 
many problems of the origin of the war, and 
upon controversial points that have arisen 
between the belligerents and between belliger- 
ents and neutrals, because of acts of war. 

But can we assume the attitude of suspend- 
ing judgment in regard to aU that has hap- 
pened since August, IQ14, and all that is 
happening to-day? The world at heart is 
not cold-blooded. The world at heart is not 



Of Modern History 7 

hopelessly selfish. The world at heart is 
not deaf to the appeal of the innocent and 
helpless. Else we should have reason 
indeed to believe in the complete disappear- 
ance of our twentieth-century Christian 
civilization. If some issues are debat- 
able, if some events are obscure, if some 
charges and counter-charges cannot be 
determined, there are others that can be 
determined. 

It is because the Armenian massacres 
in Turkey are clearly established, because 
responsibilities can be definitely fixed, and 
because an appeal to humanity can be made 
on behalf of the remnant of the Armenian 
race in the Ottoman Empire without the 
slightest suspicion of political interest, that 
I feel it advisable and imperative at this 
moment to call attention to what is undoubt- 
edly the blackest page in modern history, to 



8 Blackest Page of Modern History 

set forth the facts, and to point out the 
responsibilities. 

Herbert Adams Gibbons. 

Paris, December i, igi 5. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Foreword -5 

Introductory n 

CHAPTER I 

In April, 19 15, the Ottoman Govern- 
ment Began to Put into Execution 
throughout turkey a systematic 
and Carefully-Prepared Plan to 
Exterminate the Armenian Race. 
In Six Months Nearly a Million 
Armenians have been Killed. The 
Number of the Victims and the 
Manner of their Destruction are 
without Parallel in Modern History i 7 

CHAPTER II 

The Armenians, as a Race, have never 
been, and are not, a menace to the 
Security of Turkey. They are 
Blameless of the Charge of Dis- 
loyalty, WHICH HAS BEEN THE EXCUSE 

for their Massacre and Deportation 30 
9 



io Contents 

CHAPTER III 

PAGE 

The Preservation of the Armenian 
Element is Absolutely Indispensa- 
ble to the Well-being and Pros- 
perity of the Ottoman Empire. It 
has been Proved through Centuries 
that Christians and Moslems are 
Able to Live in Peace and Amity 
in Turkey, which is Equally the 
Country of Both . . . -43 

CHAPTER IV 

The German Government could have 
Prevented this Effort at Exter- 
minating the Armenian Race, but 
has Chosen not to Do so. There is 
Grave Reason to Believe the Ger- 
man Government has Welcomed, if 
not Encouraged, the Disappear- 
ance of the Armenians from Asia 
Minor, for the Furtherance of 
German Political and Commercial 
Designs on the Ottoman Empire . 54 

Conclusion . . . . -65 

Sources ...... 69 



INTRODUCTORY 

IN the summer of 1908, when the 
Young Turks compelled Abdul Ha- 
mid to re-establish the constitution 
he had granted, and almost immedi- 
ately suppressed, at the beginning of 
his reign thirty years before, they had 
a good press throughout the civilized 
world. Writers of all nations lauded the 
Young Turks, and described in glowing 
terms the wonderful future of the Otto- 
man Empire under the regime of Liberty, 
Equality, and Fraternity. The goodwill 
of Europe and America, and practical 
encouragement as well, was given to the 
reformers of Turkey in every possible 

way. Especially among the Powers, 
11 



12 The Blackest Page 

Great Britain and France aided the 
Young Turks to establish the new regime 
by lending them money and capable ad- 
visers for the Treasury and Navy, the 
two departments of the Turkish Govern- 
ment that were the weakest. 

One has only to look through the 
files of the newspapers of Occidental 
Europe to establish the truth of this 
statement. As one of the group of 
writers for_the European and American 
press on Turkish affairs, during the first 
difficult (and disappointing!) years of 
the constitutional regime, I can say 
honestly that our loyalty to the Young 
Turks was unswerving. In the hope that 
the end would justify the means, I am 
afraid that there was not one of us who 
did not occasionally sin against his own 
convictions by suppressio veri, if not by 



Of Modern History 13 

actual suggestio falsi. Occidental diplo- 
macy was just as loyal to Young Turkey 
as was Occidental journalism. Successive 
Grand Viziers assured me that the loyal 
co-operation of London and Paris, through 
willingness to forbear criticism and to 
leave much unsaid, had made possible 
the maintenance of the newly-established 
constitution throughout the first difficult 
winter, and the weathering of the storm 
of Abdul Hamid's attempted counter- 
revolution. 

It was my fortune to go to Turkey dur- 
ing the first month of the new regime, and 
to live in Asia Minor and Constantino- 
ple until after the disastrous war with 
the Balkan States. From 1908 to 1913, 
I enjoyed exceptional opportunities of 
travelling in European and Asiatic 
Turkey, of becoming acquainted with the 



14 The Blackest Page 

men who were guiding the destinies of 
the Ottoman Empire, and of witnessing 
the fatal events that changed in five 
years the hope of regeneration into the 
despair of dissolution. At Smyrna, at 
Constantinople, and at Beirut, I took 
part in the f£tes to celebrate the birth 
of the new r6gime, and saw the ostensible 
reconciliation of Christian, Moslem, and 
Jewish elements. Christian priests and 
Moslem ulema embraced each other and 
drove through the streets in triumphal 
procession in the same carriages. 

Above all, from the very beginning, I 
was in a position to become intimately 
acquainted with the Armenians of Turkey 
and to find out their real sentiments 
towards the Young Turks and the new 
regime. I was in Adana, in April, 1909, 
when their enthusiastic loyalty was re- 



Of Modern History 15 

warded by a massacre of thirty thou- 
sand of them in Cilicia and northern 
Syria. I was able to observe the attitude 
of the Armenians before the massacre. 
Their blood was spilled before my eyes 
in Adana. I was with them in different 
places after the fury of the massacre had 
passed. 

This preamble in the first person is 
reluctantly written. But I feel that it 
must be given, in order that I may antici- 
pate exception to my statements on the 
ground that I am "not acquainted with 
the problem," and that "it is impossible 
for an outsider to form a judgment on 
these matters. " For I have always 
found that the Turk and his friends, when 
you speak to them on the Armenian 
question, flatly deny your facts and 
challenge the competency of your judg- 



1 6 Blackest Page of Modern History 

ment. It is necessary, then, for me to 
state that the facts set forth here are given 
with intimate personal knowledge of their 
authenticity, and that the judgments 
passed upon these facts are the result of 
years of study and observation at close 
range. 



CHAPTER I 

In April, 1915, the Ottoman Govern- 
ment Began to Put into Execution 
throughout turkey a systematic 
and Carefully-prepared Plan to 
Exterminate the Armenian Race. 
In Six Months Nearly a Million 
Armenians have been Killed. 
The Number of the Victims and 
the Manner of their Destruc- 
tion ARE WITHOUT PARALLEL IN 

Modern History. 

IN the autumn of 1914, the Turks began 
to mobilize Christians as well as 
Moslems for the army. For six 

months, in every part of Turkey, they 
2 17 



1 8 The Blackest Page 

called upon the Armenians for military 
service. Exemption money was accepted 
from those who could pay. A few weeks 
later the exemption certificates were dis- 
regarded, and their holders enrolled. 
The younger classes of Armenians, who 
did not live too far from Constantinople, 
were placed, as in the Balkan wars, in the 
active army. The older ones, and all the 
Armenians enrolled in the more distant 
regions, were utilized for road, railway, 
and fortification building. Wherever 
they were called, and to whatever task 
they were put, the Armenians did their 
duty, and worked for the defence of 
Turkey. They proved themselves brave 
soldiers and intelligent and industrious 
labourers. 

In April, 1915, orders were sent out 
from Constantinople to the local author- 



Of Modern History 19 

ities in Asia Minor to take whatever 
measures were deemed best to paralyse 
in advance an attempt at rebellion on the 
part of the Armenians. The orders im- 
pressed upon the local authorities that 
the Armenians were an extreme dan- 
ger to the safety of the empire, and sug- 
gested that national defence demanded 
imperatively anticipatory severity in 
order that the Armenians might be 
rendered harmless. 

In some places, the local authorities 
replied that they had observed no sus- 
picious activity on the part of the Arme- 
nians and reminded the Government that 
the Armenians were harmless because they 
possessed no arms and because the most 
vigorous masculine element had already 
been taken for the army. There are 
some Turks who have a sense of pity 



20 The Blackest Page 

and a sense of shame! But the majority 
of the Turkish officials responded with 
alacrity to the hint from Constantinople, 
and those who did not were very soon 
replaced. 

A new era of Armenian massacres 
began. 

At first, in order that the task might be 
accomplished with the least possible risk, 
the virile masculine Armenian population 
still left in the cities and villages was 
summoned to assemble at a convenient 
place, generally outside the town, and 
gendarmes and police saw to it that the 
summons was obeyed. None was over- 
I looked. When they had rounded up the 
! Armenian men, they butchered them. 
This method of procedure was generally 
feasible in small places. In larger cities, 
it was not always possible to fulfil the 



Of Modern History 21 

orders from Constantinople so simply and 
promptly. The Armenian notables were 
assassinated in the streets or in their 
homes. If it was an interior city, the 
men were sent off under guard to "another 
town. " In a few hours the guard would 
return without their prisoners.- If it 
was a coast city, the Armenians were 
taken away in boats outside the har- 
bour to "another port." The boats 
returned astonishingly soon without the 
passengers. 

Then, in order to prevent the possibil- 
ity of trouble from Armenians mobilized 
for railway and road construction, they 
were divided in companies of from three 
hundred to five hundred and put to work 
at intervals of several miles. Regiments 
of the Turkish regular army were sent 
"to put down the Armenian revolution, " 



22 The Blackest Page 

and came suddenly upon the little groups 
of workers plying pickaxe, crowbar, and 
shovel. The " rebels' ' were riddled with 
bullets before they knew what was 
happening. The few who managed to 
flee were followed by mounted men, and 
shot or sabred. 

Telegrams began to pour in upon 
Talaat bey at Constantinople, announc- 
ing that here, there, and everywhere 
Armenian uprisings had been put down, 
and telegrams were returned, congratu- 
lating the local officials upon the success 
of their prompt measures. To neutral 
newspaper men at Constantinople, to 
neutral diplomats, who had heard vaguely 
of a recurrence of Armenian massacres, 
this telegraphic correspondence was shown 
as proof that an imminent danger had 
been averted. "We have not been cruel, 



Of Modern History 23 

but we admit having been severe, " de- 
clared Talaat bey. " This is war time. " 

Having thus rid themselves of the 
active manhood of the Armenian race, 
the Turkish Government still felt uneasy. 
The old men and boys, the women and 
children, were an element of danger 
to the Ottoman Empire. The Armeni- 
ans must be rooted out of Turkey. But 
how accomplish this in such a way that 
the Turkish Ambassador at Washington 
and the German newspapers might be 
able to say, as they have said and are still 
saying, "All those who have been killed 
were of that rebellious element caught 
red-handed or while otherwise commit- 
ting traitorous acts against the Turkish 
Government, and not women and children, 
as some of these fabricated reports would 
have the Americans believe?" Talaat 



24 The Blackest Page 

bey was ready with his plan. Deporta- 
tion — a regrettable measure, a military 
necessity — but perfectly humane. 

From May until October the Ottoman 
Government pursued methodically a plan 
of extermination far more hellish than the 
worst possible massacre. Orders for de- 
portation of the entire Armenian popu- 
lation to Mesopotamia were despatched 
to every province of Asia Minor. These 
orders were explicit and detailed. No 
hamlet was too insignificant to be missed. 
The news was given by town criers that 
every Armenian was to be ready to leave 
at a certain hour for an unknown desti- 
nation. There were no exceptions for 
the aged, the ill, the women in pregnancy. 
Only rich merchants and bankers and 
good-looking women and girls were al- 
lowed to escape by professing Isl&m, 



Of Modern History 25 

and let it be said to their everlasting 
honour that few availed themselves of 
this means of escape. The time given 
varied from two days to six hours. No 
household goods, no animals, no extra 
clothing could be taken along. Food 
supply and bedding was limited to what 
a person could carry. And they had to 
go on foot under the burning sun through 
parched valleys and over snow-covered 
mountain passes, a journey of from three 
to eight weeks. 

When they passed through Christian 
villages where the deportation order 
had not yet been received, the travellers 
were not allowed to receive food or 
ministrations of any sort. The sick and 
the aged and the wee children fell by the 
roadside, and did not rise again. Women 
in childbirth were urged along by bayo- 



26 The Blackest Page 

nets and whips until the moment of de- 
liverance came, and were left to bleed 
to death. The likely girls were seized 
for harems, or raped day after day by the 
guards until death came as a merciful 
release. Those who could committed 
suicide. Mothers went crazy, and threw 
their children into the river to end their 
sufferings. Hundreds of thousands of 
women and children died of hunger, of 
thirst, of exposure, of shame. 

The pitiful caravans thinned out, first 
daily, and later hourly. Death be- 
came the one thing to be longed for: for 
how can hope live, how can strength 
remain, even to the fittest, in a journey 
that has no end? And if they turned 
to right or left from that road to hell, 
they were shot or speared. Kurds and 
mounted peasants hunted down those 



Of Modern History 27 

who succeeded in escaping the roadside 
guards. 

They are still putting down the Arme- 
nian revolution out there in Asia Minor. 
I had just written the above paragraph 
when an English woman whom I have 
known for many years came to my home. 
She left Adana, in Cilicia, only a month 
ago. Her story is the same as that of 
a hundred others. I have the identical 
facts, one eye-witness testimony corrobo- 
rating the other, from American, English, 
German, and Swiss sources. This English 
woman said to me, "The deportation is 
still going on. From the interior along 
the Bagdad Railway they are still being 
sent through Adana on the journey of 
death. As far as the railway exists, it is 
being used to hurry the work of extermin- 
ation faster than the caravans from the 



28 The Blackest Page 

regions where there are no railways. 
Oh! if they would only massacre them, 
and be done with it, as in the 
Hamidian days! I stood there at 
the Adana railway station, and from 
the carriages the women would hold 
up their children, and cry for water. 
They had got beyond a desire for 
bread. Only water! There was a 
pump. I went down on my knees to 
beg the Turkish guard to let me give 
them a drink. But the train moved on, 
and the last I heard was the cry of those 
lost souls. That was not once. It was 
almost every day the same thing. Did 
Lord Bryce say eight hundred thou- 
sand? Well, it must be a million now. 
Could you conceive of human beings 
allowing wild animals to die a death 
like that?" 



Of Modern History 29 

But the Turkish Ambassador in Wash- 
ington declares that these stories are 
"fabrications, " and that "no women and 
children have been killed. " 



CHAPTER II 

The Armenians, as a Race; have 
never been, and are not, a men- 
ACE to the Security of Turkey. 
They are Blameless of the Charge 
of Disloyalty, which has been 
the Excuse for their Massacre 
and Deportation. 

IN commenting upon the report of the 
American Committee, on Armenian 
Atrocities, Djelal Munif bey, the 
Turkish Consul-General in New York, 
declared: "However much to be deplored 
may be these harrowing events in the 
last analysis, we can but say the Arme- 
nians have only themselves to blame." 
30 



Blackest Page of Modern History 31 

Djelal Munif bey went on to explain that 
the Armenians had been planning a 
revolution, and were killed by the Turkish 
soldiers only after they had been caught 
" red-handed with arms in their hands, 
resisting lawful authority." 

This has been the invariable explan- 
ation for the massacre of Armenians in 
Turkey. We heard it in 1 895-1 896 and 
in 1909. We have been hearing it again 
in 191 5. But facts to substantiate it 
have never been given. On the other 
hand, there exists overwhelming evi- 
dence of the most convincing character 
to show how inadmissible it is as an ex- 
planation, how baseless it is as a charge. 

I have talked personally with, or have 
seen letters and reports from, American 
missionaries and consular officials of all 
nations, who were witnesses of the massa- 



32 The Blackest Page 

cres of 1895 an d 1896. At that~time, as 
a result of unendurable persecution and 
injustice, certain organizations of young 
men, of the type the French call exaltes, 
banded together in secret societies, an 
imitation of internal organizations in 
Russia, agitated, within the Ottoman 
Empire and abroad, for a more favour- 
able treatment of Armenians and other 
Christians. Some of these exaltes cer- 
tainly advocated, and tried to work for, 
the independence of Armenia. But the 
propaganda never gained favour in 
ecclesiastical circles, nor ground among 
the great mass of the Armenian popula- 
tion in Turkey. Except in the vilayet 
of Van, the Armenians no longer formed 
the majority of the population. They 
were too scattered throughout the empire 
to have serious hope of winning independ- 



Of Modern History 33 

ence, such as the Greeks, Bulgarians, 
Servians, and Rumanians had succeeded 
in obtaining in the Balkan peninsula. 1 
In the 1909 massacre, I was on the 
ground at the time, and studied these 
charges. I demonstrated to my own 
satisfaction (and to that of a number of 
newspaper men, including Germans) the 



1 1 do not mean by this statement to deny that the edu- 
cated Armenians, just as every other people under the 
yoke of another race, have not longed, in their most inti- 
mate sentiments, for the day when national aspirations 
would be realized. But, the Armenians are above all a 
practical people, and they did not look for what they knew 
was impossible of realization. In the correspondence 
concerning Armenian people in the Chancelleries of the 
Great Powers and in the archives of the Sublime Porte, 
the question has always been to obtain reforms that would 
secure for the Armenians only those privileges and only that 
measure of security and freedom, to which they had the right 
as Ottoman subjects to aspire. In 19 13, the Powers, among 
whom was Germany, proposed to the Turkish Government 
a plan for reforms in Asia Minor, which was accepted and 
decreed by Turkey, but which was not put into execution. 
Up to the time of this terrible crime of the past few months, 
the Armenians demanded, and were glad to have obtained 
in Turkey, only those reforms that Turkey had agreed 
herself to put into effect. 
3 



34 The Blackest Page 

total lack of foundation of this charge 
against the Armenians of Cilicia. Not one 
Armenian out of a hundred had anything 
to do with the revolutionary societies. 
The lower classes were too ignorant to 
be affected by such a propaganda. The 
Armenian Church denounced the folly 
of the visionaries. College professors 
spoke and wrote against it. The wealthy 
city classes frankly let the agitators know 
that they were not only passively, but 
also actively, opposed to the propaganda. 
The Turks had nothing whatever to 
fear from Armenian revolutionaries. They 
knew this. More than that, they knew 
just who the exaltes were. The Turkish 
Government was well able to assure itself 
that the propagandists were not to be 
feared. If they had feared them, they 
could easily have laid their hands on 



Of Modern History 35 

them any time they wanted to. In 
Adana, the arrest of from thirty to forty 
young men would have gathered into the 
net all the agitators. Instead of that, 
six thousand were massacred there, and 
half the city burned. Then the Arme- 
nian revolution was trumped up as an 
excuse ! 

The hideous miscarriage of justice of 
the court martial after the Adana mas- 
sacre was the beginning of the downfall 
of the Young Turk regime. It was a 
demonstration of the mockery of the 
Young Turk assertion that the Ottoman 
Empire was to be reconstructed on the 
principles of Liberty, Equality, and Fra- 
ternity. From that day to this, their every 
act has given the lie to their profession. 
I say hideous miscarriage of justice, be- 
cause no element in the empire had wel- 



36 The Blackest Page 

corned more heartily the advent of the 
constitutional regime, no element had 
supported the Young Turks more loyally 
than the Armenians. If they erred at all 
during those first nine months of the 
constitutional era, it was in showing so 
openly — and so joyously — their touching 
faith in the men of Salonika. They 
accepted the revolution as sincere. Their 
support of the new regime was sponta- 
neous and enthusiastic. They believed 
in the Young Turks — until they were 
undeceived by the Young Turks them- 
selves. 

; After the massacre had stopped, on 
word from Constantinople, I heard a Young 
Turk officer address the survivors in the 
courtyard of the American Mission at 
Tarsus. He assured them that the danger 
was over, that it had been due to the 



Of Modern History 37 

counter-revolution of Abdul Hamid, and 
that now they might feel assured that 
Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity were 
really theirs. He told the Armenians 
that the Young Turks had suffered 
equally with them, and that they had 
been companions in misfortune. With 
sublime faith, sublime even though stupid, 
the bulk of the Armenians believed once 
more. They accepted the explanation of 
the massacre, and continued to support 
the Ottoman Government. 

During the four years after Adana, I 
spent most of my time in Constantinople, 
and" I was constantly with the leaders of 
the Armenian race. Never once did I 
hear an Armenian ecclesiastic or other 
Armenian of weight and reputation speak 
against the Ottoman Government. I 
know positively that they were not 



38 The Blackest Page 

working against the Ottoman Govern- 
ment. On the other hand, I am sure 
that the Turks knew they could count on 
the loyal support and co-operation of the 
Armenians. The Turks had proof of 
Armenian loyalty during the Italian war 
and the two Balkan wars. Armenians, 
enrolled in the Turkish army, fought 
bravely for the common fatherland beside 
their Moslem brethren. In the hour of 
danger and humiliation, the Armenians 
of Turkey stood by their fellow Ottoman 
subjects. They gave their blood for 
Turkey. Unlike the Ottoman Greeks, 
they could be suspected of no secret 
wishes for the success of the enemy. 

It is unfair for the Ottoman Govern- 
ment to cite, as basis for its charges against 
its Armenian subjects, the fact that 
Armenians in large numbers are fighting 



Of Modern History 39 

in the Russian army. As a result of the 
war of 1877, Turkey was compelled to 
cede a portion of Armenia to Russia. 
The Armenians of these territories and 
of the Caucasus have been for nearly 
forty years under Russian rule, and 
are naturally, as Russian subjects, 
fighting against Turkey. In giving the 
fact that there are Armenians in the 
Russian armies as a reason for doubt- 
ing the loyalty of the Armenians in 
Turkey, the Turks and their German 
apologists have traded upon European 
and American imperfect knowledge of the 
history and geography of the regions 
beyond Van. The formation of corps of 
Armenian volunteers in the Allied armies, 
and the open support of the cause of the 
Allies on the part of Armenian commu- 
nities in France and Great Britain have 



40 The Blackest Page 

i 

been unfortunate. As individuals who 
have left Turkey, these exiled Armenians 
have a right to do as they choose, as 
communities, it would have been — it is 
now — better for them to keep quiet. 
Although they have no justification for 
doing so, the Turks and Germans have 
been using the manifestations made by 
these small communities outside of Tur- 
key as reflecting the spirit and intentions 
of the Armenians in Turkey, and have 
succeeded in confusing many neutrals 
about the real facts of the Armenian 
situation. 

If the Armenians, during the present 
massacres and forcible deportations, have 
in some places, as they did in Adana in 
1909, defended, arms in hand, their homes 
and their loved ones, it has been only 
when the Ottoman Government failed 



Of Modern History 41 

them, and when they were convinced that 
their extermination had been decided 
upon. Even in these cases, as at Adana, 
when they received assurances of pro- 
tection against local Moslem fanaticism 
from the Government at Constantinople, 
they trusted once more. In every in- 
stance of this kind — again let me re- 
mind my readers that I have authentic 
eye-witness testimony — their faith was 
betrayed. The Ottoman Government 
officials broke their word, and butchered 
the Armenians after they had laid down 
their arms. 

With the possible exception of Van, 
there was no place where the Turks had 
the slightest ground for suspicion that 
the local attempt of the Armenians to 
defend their wives and children was in 
connivance with the enemy. And Van 



42 Blackest Page of Modern History 

is only one of thirty centres of massacre and 
deportation in Asia Minor! 

If the Ottoman Government has facts 
to establish its contention that the Arme- 
nians of Turkey were plotting against the 
security of the empire, let it lay these 
facts before the world. 



CHAPTER III 

The Preservation of the Armenian 
Element is Absolutely Indispens- 
able to the Well-being and 
Prosperity of the Ottoman Em- 
pire. It has been Proved through 
Centuries that Christians and 
Moslems are Able to Live in 
Peace and Amity in Turkey, which 
is Equally the Country of Both. 

ONE hesitates, on general principles, 
to attempt to advise, or to ad- 
monish, as to its best interests, 
a nation at war. In a life and death 
struggle such as this war has become, 
it would be naturally supposed that a 

,43 



44 The Blackest Page 

nation and its rulers are the best judges 
of what it is to their interest to do. 
Advice from outside sources is open to the 
suspicion of being not disinterested. And 
does not admonition, if not sheer imperti- 
nence, betray impotence on the part of 
the admonisher? 

But in the Ottoman Empire, the situ- 
ation is different from that of any other 
country in Europe. There is not a 
sufficient number of educated men among 
the non-Christian elements of the Otto- 
man Empire to form, let alone to guide, 
public opinion. Consequently, there is 
no public opinion. The governing power 
has always been in the hands of a small 
and corrupt circle, and the Ottoman 
nation has not developed in self-govern- 
ment, in popular institutions, as have the 
other nations of Europe. 



Of Modern History 45 

The new regime was hailed with joy 
by the outside world, and by the non- 
Moslem elements inside the empire as 
well, because the Constitution of 1908 was 
regarded as the starting point in a struggle 
of the people of the empire, irrespective 
of religion and race, against an absolutism 
that had in practice proved equally inju- 
rious, if not equally oppressive, to all the 
races subjected to the tyranny of Yildiz 
Kiosk. 

It was very soon seen, however, that 
Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity had no 
part whatever in the Young Turk con- 
ception of a constitutional state. It 
was simply the replacing of one clique 
by another. The honest, sincere Young 
Turks, with motives above suspicion, who 
actually meant what they said, were so 
few in number that they could not prevail 



46 The Blackest Page 

against the type in the Committee of 
Union and Progress, personified by such 
men as Talaat, Enver, Djavid, Djemal, 
Hairi, Ahmed Riza, Dr. Nazim, Hadji 
Adil, Bedri, and Hussein Djahid. The 
Moslem population of the empire, being 
intensely ignorant, could not be looked 
to by the few enthusiasts to support 
constitutional principles. The Christian 
population, much better educated and 
having much more reason to appreciate 
the newly-proclaimed liberty, were the 
only elements upon which a politically 
regenerated Turkey could stand. For 
this reason alone did the Armenian element 
become immediately a source of danger to 
the new clique that had replaced Abdul 
Hamid. These so-called Young Turks 
turned upon the Armenians just as 
Abdul Hamid had turned upon them — to 



Of Modern History 47 

prevent their becoming the leaven in the 
regeneration of Turkey. The Constitu- 
tion, hailed by the Armenians as the 
beginning of their political emancipation, 
became almost immediately — and inevi- / 
tally — their death-warrant. 

One does not need to study deeply, one 
has simply to read the history of the 
Ottoman Empire since Great Britain and 
France saved the Turks by the Crimean 
War, to realize that the Armenians, from 
the moment the question of "reforms" 
was introduced by the Powers in their 
dealings with the Sublime Porte, have 
been the unwitting victims of the 
cause of civilization in the Near East. 
The Congress of Berlin fully recognized 
this fact. 

The trans-Caucasian policy of Russia, 
and the Balkan policy of all the Great 



48 The Blackest Page 

Powers first awakened, and has since 
been the exciting cause of, the fanaticism 
of the Moslems of Turkey against the 
Armenians. Before there was an acute 
" Question of the Orient, " did we ever 
have great Armenian massacres? And 
yet, Christian Europe never made a con- 
certed effort to save this unhappy race 
from the results of Europe's own dealings 
with the Turks. 

The Armenians, of course, always suf- 
fered to a certain extent from their social 
and political disabilities under Moslem 
rule. But they have lived for centuries 
in comparative security, and certainly 
with a large measure of prosperity, as 
Ottoman subjects. Personal relations be- 
tween Turks and Armenians have been 
not at all bad. I have had opportunity 
to observe this fact in different parts of 



Of Modern History 49 

Turkey. The Turks are not, like the 
Arabs, a fanatical people by nature. The 
persecution and massacre of Armenians is 
not, as the general European and Amer- 
ican public have erroneously thought, an 
age-old matter of religious strife. Nor 
has it been, as is so frequently asserted by 
those who have the effrontery to explain 
and attempt to condone (ye gods!) 
Armenian massacres, because the Arme- 
nians are money-lenders and oppress the 
simple-minded Turks. The refutation of 
the first of these two prevalent beliefs is 
that the great Armenian massacres are 
events of the last quarter of a century, 
while Armenians and Turks have been 
living together in Asia Minor nearly seven 
centuries. The refutation of the second 
is that the massacres have not been con- 
fined to the larger cities, where many of 



50 The Blackest Page 

the Armenians are well-to-do, but have 
always taken place in exactly the same 
way and in exactly the same degree in 
communities where the Armenians are 
both ignorant and poverty-stricken. 

Nothing is more stupid, nothing more 
against nature and history, than advocat- 
ing that the solution of the Armenian 
question and salvation of the Armenian 
race is in emigration en masse to America 
or some other country. The Armenians 
are an indigenous element in Asiatic 
Turkey. Their wholesale emigration 
might save the lives of several hundred 
thousand individuals. But it would 
break the hearts of most of those who 
were thus saved, and it would mark the 
disappearance of the Armenians as a 
race and a nation, just as certainly as 
if their extermination by massacre were 



Of Modern History 51 

completed. What has the Armenian race 
done that it should disappear? And 
is not jus soli as strong as the jus patris — ■ 
especially in lands where there is sun- 
shine? 

The preservation of the Armenian 
element in Asia Minor is indispensable 
to the well-being and prosperity of the 
Turks themselves. Politically, as well as 
economically, it is impossible for the 
Turks to continue to exist as an inde- 
pendent, and in any measure at all self- 
supporting, nation without the help of the 
Armenians. The Armenian massacres 
illustrate the old story of killing the goose 
that laid the golden egg. In their pitiful 
ignorance, in their frenzy of blood-lust, 
the Turks are turning upon and destroy- 
ing those whose existence is precious and 
vital to their community and national 



52 The Blackest Page 

life. Travel where you will through 
Turkey, from one end of the great empire 
to the other, and you find no community 
that is prosperous without Armenians. 
Along the seacoast, the Greeks play an 
important part in the economic life of 
Turkey. But in the interior the Arme- 
nians are a sine qua non to the Turks. 

Of the Armenians in Turkey one might 
have said without fear of contradiction 
before the terrible events of the past six 
months, that they were in no place 
numerically strong enough to jeopardize 
the political independence of the Ottoman 
Empire, but that they were everywhere 
in sufficient number to guarantee its 
economic independence. 

Intelligent and patriotic Turks must 
certainly see that the attempt to exter- 
minate the Armenians, or to banish the 



Of Modern History 53 

remnant of them from Asia Minor, is a 
mortal blow to Turkish independence, 
political as well as economic. The exter- 
mination of the Armenians is to the 
interest of a certain nation — but that 
nation is not Turkey! 



CHAPTER IV 

The German Government could have 
Prevented this Effort at Exter- 
minating the Armenian Race, but 
has Chosen not to Do so. There is 
Grave Reason to Believe the Ger- 
man Government has Welcomed, if 
not Encouraged, the Disappear- 
ance of the Armenians from Asia 
Minor, for the Furtherance of 
German Political and Commercial 
Designs on the Ottoman Empire. 

A PATRIOTIC German woman wrote 
from Marash on June 4, 1915* 
to the Sonnenaufgangy organ of 

the Deutscher Hillfsbund fur christliches 
54 



Blackest Page of Modern History 55 

Liebeswerk im Orient: "Oh, if we could 
write all that we are seeing!" German 
missionaries in Asia Minor have been 
fully as horror-stricken, fully as sym- 
pathetic, and fully as indignant as the 
missionaries of other nations. And I have 
no doubt that there are millions of Ger- 
mans to-day, who, if they were allowed to 
know the truth, would protest bitterly to 
their Government against the extermin- 
ation of the Armenian nation, and peti- 
tion their Government, in the name of 
God, to do something to prevent Ger- 
many from being stigmatized in history 
as "partner in the awful crimes that are 
being committed in the Ottoman Empire. 
It has been shown that there never has 
been, and that there is not now, reason 
for Moslem fanaticism against the Arme- 
nian race. Of their own initiative, with- 



56 The Blackest Page 

out the direct command and incitement 
of the authorities and without the help 
of the soldiery and gendarmery, Turks 
have never massacred Armenians. Since, 
then, this effort to exterminate the Arme- 
nian race, made everywhere in Asiatic 
Turkey at the same moment, has been 
due to a systematic scheme, organized and 
directed from Constantinople, we must 
seek the responsibility among the officials 
of the Turkish Government at Constanti- 
nople. The deliberate, minutely-planned 
Armenian massacres and deportations, 
carried on without interruption from 
April to November, 1915, must have been 
conceived by someone, ordered by some- 
one, and perpetrated for some purpose. 

Conceived by whom? Ordered by 
whom? Perpetrated for what purpose? 

The conception is not new. It has been 



Of Modern History 57 

explained above that the Armenians 
drew upon themselves the distrust and 
the hatred of the Young Turks because 
they took the Young Turks seriously, 
and believed that the Constitution was 
to be a real constitution. The Adana 
massacre was the first effort on the part 
of those who usurped Abdul Hamid's 
policy and methods when they usurped 
his authority, to destroy the Armenians. 
Back in those days I heard more than one 
prominent Young Turk give hearty assent 
to the bon mot that was then going the 
rounds, "The only way to get rid of 
the Armenian question is to get rid of the 
Armenians !" To finish the work begun 
at Adana has been a political ideal for six 
years. The opportunity for realization 
came. It was seized immediately. 
When the attack of the Allies against the 



58 The Blackest Page 

Dardanelles was begun, it was common 
knowledge at Constantinople that the death- 
warrant of the Armenian race, long ago 
signed and put aside in the pigeon-holes 
of the Sublime Porte and the Seraskerat, 
would be brought out and put into execution. 
Is it possible to believe that the German 
Embassy was ignorant of this, and that 
Talaat bey gave the orders without hav- 
ing informed Baron von Wangenheim? 
Is it possible that the German Govern- 
ment at Berlin did not know of the plan, 
even if their representative at Con- 
stantinople failed to inform them? Here 
are the facts. 

The extermination of a million and a 
half innocent, loyal to a fault, Christian 
subjects of the Sultan of Turkey was 
planned at, and ordered from, Con- 
stantinople. 



Of Modern History 59 

At Constantinople, the one man whose 
word, supported by his Government, 
would have prevented the orders from 
going out, was the German Ambassador. 

Although he may not have known dur- 
ing the first week or two, the German 
Ambassador was pled with, long before it 
was too late, to use the influence of Ger- 
many to put a stop to what was to prove 
the blackest page of modern history. 

Since Germany refused to intervene 
before the extermination of the Arme- 
nians started, is she not accessory before 
the fact to the murder by sword, by 
starvation and thirst, by exposure, by 
beating, by rape, of nearly a million 
human beings, whose fault was that they 
were "in the way," and whose vulner- 
ability and defencelessness lay in the sole 
fact that they were Christians? 



60 The Blackest Page 

Since Germany has persisted in refus- 
ing to intervene during the process of ex- 
termination, is she not particeps criminis ? 

Ambassador von Wangenheim declared 
to Ambassador Morgenthau at Constan- 
tinople that Germany could not, upon 
request of the United States, intervene in 
the internal affairs of Turkey. Ambas- 
sador von Bernstorff at Washington, 
when he saw what a painful impression 
the newspaper accounts of the Armenian 
atrocities were producing on the Ameri- 
can public, at first denied that there had 
been massacres, and, later, when it was 
impossible to maintain his denial in face 
of established facts, declared that what 
had happened in Turkey was a perfectly 
justifiable suppression of Armenian re- 
bellions. 

In one large city of Asiatic Turkey, an 



Of Modern History 61 

American missionary, a man whom I 
know personally and whose word can be 
trusted implicitly, saw a German officer 
directing the artillery fire of the Turks 
upon the Armenian civilian popula- 
tion. In two other places, at least, 
German consuls defended the Ottoman 
policy both of massacre and of deport- 
ation. 

On the broader and more general moral 
ground of responsibility as brother's 
keeper, the German, who alone of all 
European nations have had, and still have 
the power to stop these massacres, stand 
condemned. It is going to be difficult 
for their writers, who have been foremost 
in extolling the Armenian race, its virtues, 
and its contributions to civilization, to 
defend to the satisfaction of posterity the 
inertia of the German Government in the 



62 The Blackest Page 

face of the extermination of the Armenian 
nation. 

That they kept quiet, and refused to 
act, when they alone could have saved 
the Armenians from destruction, is the 
first count in the case against the Germans. 
It is serious. The second count is sinister. 

When we try to find the purpose 
behind the Armenian massacres, we are 
confronted with what is, under the circum- 
stances, an eloquent accusation "against 
the German Government and the German 
people. The Germans, and the Germans 
alone, will benefit by the extermination of 
the Armenians. I have pointed out above 
how the Armenians are the essential 
factor, the guarantee indeed, of Turkish 
economic and political independence in 
Asia Minor. By the same token, they 
appear to be a stumbling-block to German 



Of Modern History 63 

domination. The Armenians, largely edu- 
cated in French and American schools, 
speak French and English. Through 
their commercial relations with western 
Europe and America, with England most 
of all, they have naturally been "in the 
way" of the German commercial travel- 
lers. As the one commercial and agri- 
cultural element in the interior of Asia 
Minor, capable of holding its own against 
a penetration of European colonists, the 
Armenians are "in the way" of the 
schemes for the Germanization of Anato- 
lia. It was not for the Bagdad Railway 
alone, but also for all that the Bagdad 
Railway implied, that Kaiser Wilhelm II. 
fraternized with Abdul Hamid, after 
the massacres of Armenians in 1895 and 
1896. 
I have not the slightest desire to be 



64 Blackest Page of Modern History 

unfair to Germans as individuals, or to 
insinuate what can not reasonably be 
proved to be in the German mind. 
Enlightened nations, however, are cer- 
tainly responsible for the acts of their 
Governments. The Germans have as- 
sumed the responsibility for many terrible 
things in this war. They may hope, 
when passions have died down and both 
sides are known, to clear themselves of 
some charges. But there is no hope in 
regard to the charge of allowing the 
extermination of the Armenians — a crime 
by which they alone could hope to benefit. 



CONCLUSION 

AND now, in conclusion, let me 
pose frankly this question: Have 
neutral nations any responsibility 
in regard to the Armenians? 

For neutral nations in general, the 
answer depends upon whether the in- 
fluence and action of a nation ought to be 
confined wholly to internal affairs. Those 
who give to their own conscience and to 
God the answer of Cain, say frankly: "No, 
we "are not our brother's keeper. We 
have all that we can do to look after 
ourselves.' ' If this type of mentality 
had controlled the councils of the nations 
throughout the past twenty centuries, 

would there be a Christian civilization? 
s 65 



66 The Blackest Page 

Would history be able to record a single 
altruistic deed to a nation's credit? 
Would slavery ever have been abolished? 
The other type is composed of those 
who believe that man does not live by 
bread alone, or for himself alone, and that 
nations, as well as individuals, have re- 
sponsibilities towards others — especially 
if those others are weak and oppressed. 

Let us leave wholly to one side the 
argument of higher morality, this abstract, 
intangible argument, which, when urged, 
causes many to shrug their shoulders and 
smile. Let us come to the concrete 
reason for the direct responsibility of two 
nations to intervene on behalf of the 
Armenians. Among neutral and passive 
onlookers, who have been silent while the 
darkest page of modern history is being 
written, the Americans and Swiss should 



Of Modern History 67 

not forget that their money and their 
representatives have been working for 
two generations in Turkey to elevate 
the Armenians. Together with French, 
British, Germans, and Italians, the Ameri- 
cans and Swiss have helped to reawaken 
the national spirit of the Armenian 
nation. They have infused new life into 
the Armenian Church. They have made 
researches into Armenian history and 
have given to the world the results of those 
researches. They have taught the Arme- 
nians European languages, and have im- 
parted to a race that had become ignorant 
and backward, because separated from 
Europe, the spirit of Occidental civili- 
zation. Were they seeking out victims to 
deck with garlands for the sacrifice ? Were 
they fatting the calf for the slaughter? Do 
not say no! For the practical result 



68 Blackest Page of Modern History 

of their efforts to elevate the Armenian 
race is that long journey from home to the 
Valley of the Euphrates — now become 
the Valley of Death. 

Let us think hard. And then, for 
God's sake, let us act! 



SOURCES 

i . Report of American Committee on Arme-. 
nian Atrocities. New York, October, 19 15. 

The report contains thirty-five extracts from the testi- 
mony of eye-witnesses, covering the period April 27 to 
August 3, 191 5, from all parts of Asia Minor. Twenty- 
five representative Americans (including Hon. Oscar S* 
Strauss, twice American Ambassador to Turkey, Cardinal 
James Gibbons, Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, and former 
President Charles W. Eliot of Harvard University), signed 
this report, which states that each bit of testimony has 
been subjected to careful and extensive investigation, 
and that "the sources are unquestioned as to the veracity, 
integrity, and authority of the writers." 

2. Official report of the Parliamentary De- 
bate in the House of Lords, on Wednesday, 
October 6, 19 15. London, Parliamentary De- 
bates, H. of L., volume xix., 67. 

' Interpellation of the Earl of Cromer, 'speech of Viscount 
Bryce, and comments of the Marquess of Crewe. 

3. Lord Bryce's revision and enlargement of 
the official report of his speech, as given in 
"Armenian Atrocities : The Murder of a Nation/ ' 

69 



70 The Blackest Page 

by Arnold J. Toynbee. London, November, , 
I9I5- 

4. German missionaries' letters to the Son- 
nenaufgang, published by Deutscher Hiilfsbund 
fur christliches Liebeswerk im Orient. 

5. Narrative of Dikran Andreasian, trans- 
lated by Rev. Stephen Trowbridge, and pub- 
lished in The Star of the East. London, November, 
1915. 

6. Testimony of eye-witnesses, published in 
the Boulogne-sur-Mer Telegramme, September 
17; Paris Temps, September 15; Limoges 
Courrier du Centre, September 15; Tribune de 
Geneve, September 4 and 24, October 14; Journal 
de Genlve, October 13 and 24 ; Gazette de Lausanne, 
October 24; New York Evening Post, October 18. 
Resumes and editorial comments in Manchester 
Guardian, August 16 and October 26; London 
Times, October 8; Frankfurter Zeitung, October 
9; Paris-Midi, October 17. All these dates, of 
course, are in 19 15. 

7. Circular letters of various dates from July 
6 to October 22, 19 15, sent out by the American 
Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, 
Boston, Mass., which are signed by James L. 
Barton. 



Of Modern History 71 

8. A number of as yet unpublished personal 
letters. For obvious reasons, I cannot give the 
names of the writers, and the places from which 
they were written. 

9. Personal conversations with persons of 
unimpeachable integrity and unquestioned au- 
thority, who have returned between September 
15 and November 20 from Constantinople and 
Asia Minor. Their names must of necessity be 
withheld at this moment. 



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